1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tools, and more particularly, to tools for machinery repair.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the repair of automobiles, aircraft and other mechanical devices, it is often necessary to use special tools to forceably separate one mechanical component from another. For example, in order to remove a gear from the shaft upon which it rotates, a tool known as a gear puller is used. These pullers have typically included a yoke and a large threaded bolt which passes through the center of the yoke. Two or more hook-shaped jaws are coupled by extender members to the arms of the yoke. The jaws are hooked onto the gear and the central bolt is rotated until it engages the shaft carrying the gear. As the central bolt rotates, the gear is pulled off the shaft.
One problem associated with gear pullers of this type is that the diameter of the gear for which the tool may be used is determined to a large extent by the size of the yoke. Thus, to pull gears of varying size, yokes of corresponding sizes are often necessary. In addition, the yoke arms of many prior art gear pullers have not been strong enough to withstand the pressures exerted and as a result have broken.
Other components which require a tool to remove the component from a shaft for repair include steering wheels and harmonic balancers. However, gear pullers of the prior art have not typically been used for these applications because there is often not an appropriate place for the jaws to grip. Hence, separate tools to remove steering wheels and harmonic balancers have been devised.
Still other components which can require a removal tool include battery terminals. Conventional gear pullers have been found unsuitable because the gripping radius of such tools is often too wide to properly grip the battery terminal.
Conventional gear pullers have also generally been found unsuitable for separating the Pitman arm from the steering shaft of an automobile. Previous devices devised for this task have typically included an integral yoke and jaw arrangement to provide sufficient strength to remove the Pitman arm without breaking the puller tool. However, because the steering shafts of domestic and import cars often have different diameters, the integral structure has led to the need for different sized Pittman arm pullers to accommodate different sized steering shafts.
Thus, in order to achieve all of the previously stated tasks, it has often been found necessary to buy or rent a separate tool for each function. This can be costly or require a lot of storage space for all the tools. Some of the previous tools can be hazardous to operate since the associated functions may require a significant amount of force and consequently the parts to be removed may easily be damaged in the process. Some of these tools require a large amount of space to remove a part causing the removal of additional parts in order to have sufficient access to the part to be removed.